I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 

HM?-' W#4\a # 

t ■ k 

J UNITED STATES OF AMERICA f 



9-; 



CANSADO! 



C^^X*'*,-^'^,-''^'^ 



Love is the essence of all fashioned life. 

Death is an atrophy of fainish'd love. 

Delve deep down to the hidden roots of things, 

Pierce thro' the armor of God's mystic plan, 

View all the subtle sources of what is, 

Wrest from the keeper of it Nature's key. 

Unlock the secrets of all-ambient being — 

The snm of all thy booty will be love : 

Life, here and in the sealed hereafter — love ; 

Death, now and in the dread unknown— its absence. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

1877. 







Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S77, by 

WILLIAM E. SWEET, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



As a slight 
expression of his grat- 
itude for a friendship to which, 
more than to any other cause, he is in- 
debted for the due measure of his success in 
life, through the timely bestowal of fratei-nal aid and 
counsel in the extremities of "outrageous 
fortune," the author most affection- 
ately inscribes these first 
falterings of his 
Muse to 
General Rutherford B. Hayes. 



CONTENTS 



The Poet 1 

Genive - - 10 

AlLEE - - - 18 

The MA(iDAi.EN 28 

Basil 42 

Last of the Dryades 63 

Aloes 75 

Alone 78 

Broken Vases - - - - - - - 80 

A Requiem ------- 82 

To M. R. H. 84 

To A Lady. On Her Wedding Day - 86 

To the Same. On the Birth of Her First Boy 88 

To H. L. S. 90 

For Who Shall Say 91 

Ambition ------- 93 

Adios - - - - 97 



THE POET. 



Tlie Sierra 3fadre Mountains. Time, Ecening. 



A ynung Poet stnnding upon a lofty Peak, alone. After gazing longingly into 
the JEds' for a time, he turns Aw face toward the West^ all aflame with fht 
descending Sun, and thus soliloquizes .• 



T fain would sing some idyl of low note 
Would lull the singer and whoso shall list — • 
Some " Gentle Elia's" lay in votive verse — 
But thou, inexorable Muse, irapell'st mefro't, 
Sweet tyrant! 

Lo. mine eye doth peer afar 
Thro' fancy's silvery mists : I see rude storms 
Sweep o'er the pampas of perturbed souls ; 
I see mirages, and pale beckoning forms — - 
Eidolons of the heart; I see the waves 
Of passion curling round their helmless lives, 
Borne ever onward by the winds of fate ; 
I view them break on black basaltic reefs 
Of scorn and envy, wreck'd ; I hear each spar 
Send up a separate love-enanguish'd cry. 
O sweet Parnassian, pity I 



2 THE POET. 

All, liow vain ! 
Last night I knelt me on the tawny sands, 
The salt surf raining from me, and there pray'd 
A prayer for surcease of my waking dreams — 
My waking and my sleeping dreams of them. 
But while I knelt an unrest seized the Sea. 
That heaped the waters height on height, and hurled 
Them 'gainst the trembling shore, till tempest-stunn'd 
It lay quiescent, bruised and imbecile. 
And loud from out the storm a voice came up. 
Or mighty whisper, as some Titaness 
Wrapt in its toils and spent were gasping griefs 
High Jove were impotent to heart in her — 
Came up and bade me sing men's sorrows. Once 
I rode where human lives fell thick as leaves 
In autumn time — where war's red samiel swept 
A hemisphei'e, and stripp'd proud nations bare, 
That I might glean some instants of surcease; 
But ever so more loud than war's wild shock 
The voice pierced thro' the fury, crying. Sing! 
Afar from teeming highways, where new worlds 
Fresh-fashioned from God's hand lay hush-inisled, 
I builded me a cot by Balboa's Sea, 
And deemed oblivion would infold me there: 

brief reprieve! the winged breezes bore 
The message from my Muse still up to me : 
Sing, joyless mortal ! 

Vain — I know how vain ! 

1 leap up startled from my troubled sleep. 
My soul the voices of the night perturb. 
I hear loud cries wrung out by cruelty. 
And piteous passion's unrequited plaint. 

Pale forms creep thro' the shadows near to me. 
In men's loud midst I walk with spirit shapes, 



THE POET. 6 

And dwell in ways eupeopled with wing'd wraiths. 
No rest, no peace ! 

[J. wagoner passes far beneath him, singing a 
homely rustic song. 

O God ! for one brief hour 
Of quiet such as yon one Thou vouchsaf 'st — 
One in whose little round of duties done 
Doth dwell repletion of a large content. 
My brain is scorched with thought, hot blinding thought, 
That burns up from my soul. O quench it, Thou 
That kindled'st it, or kill me ! I would give 
Ambition's all to be as this man is, 
Tho' dwari'd of mind, and shut within a scope 
Whose limit is but room to house him in. 
Wherewith to feed upon, a bed, a wife : 
'Tis all, the sum of all, for 'tis content. 

lA pause. 

While other men are patient, 
Plodding thro' each day's alloted tasks. 
Building the lowly years with little cares 
And little duties done, content, I live 
An hundred lives in their each drowsy day; 
For every passion of the larger world 
Without their paltry own me seizes 'pon, 
And stamps its image on my heart of hearts. 
When other men lie down at night to sleep, 
Unhaunted by eidolons, nor perturb'd 
Unceasingly by phantoms of unrest, 
Consuming thoughts within me ever burn. 
And people darkness with their ghostly shapes. 



4 THE POET. 

AVhile other men live inly with themselves, 

Each living his own separate cycled life, 

I live not only my own life but theirs, 

And think the thoughts of every sentient brain. 

And weep the sorrows of all instinct hearts, 

And revel in the joys of every soul : 

I have no instant for large quietude, 

No leisure for surcease of ample thought. 

\_The twilight creeps up the mountain-side. 
Voices from the mining-camp? far below 
are borne up to him on the cool Paci- 
fic breezes. Baring his brow, his yel- 
low curls driven across it like raveled 
gold, a calm settles upon him, and Hope 
enters in and sits a ivhile ivith hi? spirit, 
while Sadness sleeps. 

Man, omnipresent man. thou part of God, 
Where art thou not upon ihis circling world! — 
Man, my sublimest theme, grand egotist, 
Th' iraperial-reason'd autocrat of rahid. 
That holds his tenure by divinest right. 
And feels his royalty in lofty thought. 
And reads his majesty in high resolve 
And aspirations tow'rd the infinite — • 
That knows himself the king of Nature's all. 
The crown of God's accomplished universe! 

Time was — far in the forenoon-tide of time — 
When men wei'e bullied by the carping priest 
To self-abasement, when an upright man, 
Instinct with soul and fine intelligence. 
Fell prone upon the round earth, even a thing 



•THE POET. O 

The sliiuy worm he likenVl him unto 

Was loftier and nu^re worthy. Past that time : 

Base authropomorphism served it well 

And worthily ; but came a time when man — 

I thank God hourly with my might of soul 

I lived not in the baser time, but this — 

When man was deified up to himself, 

A being whom God might not blush to own. 

O glorious later time! I sit not down 
Dejected in the shadows of the Past, 
And mourn the memory of a better. Who, 
With chosen speech and set invective, rails 
Against the temper of his time, is false 
To God, his fellows and himself. Each time, 
Each age, each generation is more fine, 
More full, more proximate to God's design. 

A lofty-imaged soul of this new age 

Climbed up the steep where bloom the flow'rs of thought 

And pluek'd this bud from ofiJ' its pendent bough : 

" O would that it had been vouchsaf'd to me 

To dwell my destined cycle here with men 

In man's last generation, finished, full. 

Perfected, rounded, when its sons shall step, 

Accomplished spirits, to the higher life." 

An earthier-fiber'd soul stepp'd lower down 
And gleaned this thistle from the weeds of thought: 
" O give me back the good old time, when there 
Were giants on the earth ! — that I had lived 
When demigods and heroes ruled the age ! " 
When demigods and heroes ruled, forsooth ! 
Who had been hero in that elder age. 
Or demigod, or giant, is in ours 



6 THE POET. ■ 

Of larger reason and of ampler soul. 
O little spirit! in that age thou niourn'st, 
Thou hadst been less by just so much as time 
Hath ripened man's intelligence, and schooled 
Him in humanity to fellow-man. 

Turn I not backward ? Ay, in retrospect. 
As one who husbands should turn ever back, 
Nor scan his furrow for its sole defects, 
But strive the next time for a perfecter. 
Who reads the maxim by the letter errs, 
And deems his furrow faultless, and so ne'er 
May turn a truer. Turn I ever back, 
Mark well the excellences of my thought — 
The imperfections view not overmuch — 
And toil to temper them with finer touch : 
So each year's furrow is a worthier : 
So each new age builds better than the last. 

theme of themes, O man ! I burn with thee. 
Thou fiU'st me to repletion, and no space 

Is in me for another : emperor 
Thou of my spirit and intelligence. 

1 love thee as ne'er lover loved, revere 
God first, thine Origin, then only thee. 
And Woman, O supreinest man ! thou art 
My shrine ; tiiou sittest in the inner temple, 
The Holy of Holies of my reverence, 

Aud thee I bow down to and worship. Proud 

Am I of mine idolatry. Thine image — 

Last, best thought of God — is God revealed 

In most essential bodiment — in love. 

Thou dost idealize the baser man. 

And thro' thy wondrous love he doth himself 

Idealize, and so thou boldest him 



THE POET. 

Bound unto nobler action. Thee i name 
Crown -jewel of Creation. 

[.4 pause. 

" Frailty, 
Thy name is Woman ! "' Nay, sweet autocrat, 
Divine dictator, sovereign of the realm — 
And tyrant we adore — of Literature, 
The woman of my time I hail thy schism. 
3fy woman, Shakespeare, is of ampler soul, 
Of godlier stature and of purpler heart. 
I am an Optimist? Ay, utterly — 
In faith in man's high destiny, in trust 
In large preponderance of fine earth in him. 
In these no fiber of my being, no 
.Sole element of all I am, but is 
Wrought Optimism, warp and weft inwov'n. 
I am no Pessimist when man is named. 
I claim a balance for the good in him ; 
Maintaining this, I am an Optimist, 
Proud of the title and deserving it. 

O I would shape mankind a finer man : 

Seek not for evil but for good alway ; 

When found a virtue, crown it an exalt, 

(Or wanting one, " assume it," and so build,) 

Praise, honor, magnify, clothe on, complete. 

Transmute the iron to fine gold in him. 

Assay the presence of no base alloy — 

Till conscious of no ill, an atrophy 

Would seize on vice, and virtue would prevail. 

No beauty else is wrought from negatives — 

From what it should not be : can man be wrought 

By such an art ? by holding up to him 



THE POET. 



Some grotesque effigy — not of hiaiself, 
But what he should 7iot be, some paragon 
Of vice and evil, till inured to it, 
(Forgetful of another) he must needs 
Grow self-transfigured to the loathsome thing? 
Nay, flatter, praise, augment all good in man. 
Exaggerate the germ until it Sfem 
Self-ambient, and so choke all evil out. 

Ay, even so. Thou canst not harmony 

Create of discord, quiet of unrest, 

Or joy of sorrow, love of hate. Can good 

Come out of evil, right of wrong? Does beauty 

Spring from hideousness ? A child has caught 

Some unclean syllables of sewer-speech, — 

How whiten you the stain? by deep'ning it? 

By signing o'er and o'er the thing you loathe. 

To school his memory to its loathsomeness? 

Nay, rather seek oblivion of the thing 

With thoughts and signs of beauty, paint the stain 

All out with symbols of the beautiful. 

The brutal Pessimist has been unthroned. 
The glorious age of Optimism dawns — 
Our golden new and gentler, kindlier age. 
The apotheosis on earth of man by ruth. 
Hail, happy age! hail twilight-time, all hail! 
Humanity's new day now streaks the East, 
Burns thro' the darkness of the elder night. 
And gives large promises of future noon. 

[T/ie wind rises; it is a spent storm at sea. 
The sob-like moans of the dying tem- 
pest are borne up to the Poet, low, 
plaintive, almost human in their an- 



THE POET. y 

gulsh. He listens, and the old long- 
ing look comes hack into his eyes : 
Mope departs out of his spirit, and 
Sadness wakes. 

Her voice — it calls me ! — O how sweet it was — 

That quiet iustant ! But 'tis past — a flash — 

A heart-pulse of heart's ease — aud then a cycle 

Of fever; this is life — and death ? . . . I come, 

O plaintive Muse ; lend me thy lyre a while, 

So I may sing my songs else worthily. 

[fle plunges into the darkness and disappears. 



GENIVE. 

A Bakojiy oifi-loohmg It (hirden. Time, Eiening. iiEmxK alone. 
GENIVE. 

I am very happy to-night. Across 

The temple of tiiy soul a cool hand passes, 

Soft as the silk palm of an angel. 

Under the lattice of my heart a lute 

Reveals such treasures of unlyr'd music 

As Jsrafel the heart-stringed harper makes. 

A prayer-eyed stranger came into my conscience 

When the round sun slid down the bevel'd west, 

And all the sullied walls wash'd white as opal. 

Mine eye, as yon lac-lighted star of space 

Snatch'd burning from the breast of Night had lit 

Its leaden iris, like a god's in love 

Burns dazzlingly. Into my pulses now 

I feel new ichor leaping from their fount, 

As some Olympian jove to succor me 

Had tapp'd his purple heart, transfusing it 

Hot-hurrying to my shrunken veins. My lips, 

Red as the red pomegranate's core with wine 

Dropped on them from his lips all swoln with love, 



GENIVE, 11 

Burning a blessed scar there, smait with bliss. 
Unconsciously his hot hand rested here 
A little instant on my scarlet neck : 
I swear more joy was cramra'd in that one touch 
Than twenty painless years sum up my life 
Have measured. O I'm very, very happy ! 
The stars creep out upon the edge of night, 
And peeping down love-sighful, onvy me. 
The troubled winds toil by me enviously, 
Murmuring a plaintive plaint 'gainst my large joy. 
The jealous angels fret their hours in heaven 
Over the measure of my faultless joy — 
I am so happy. 

[(S/te hears a noise In the garden beneath. 

'Tis he, 'tis Jason ! 
He has relented. In ray heart I hoped 
He would return, and in my soul I wish'd 
The life appointed us might all run out 
In partings and returnings to part over. 
But since this so sweet sorrow is denied me, 
I would have all his life poured out in one 
Supreme all-kiss, so I might smother me 
In cloyment of excesses, and so die. 
Jason, hist ! is't thee ? 

\_She calls down in a low voice; there is no 
answer. 

I was deceived. 
'Twas but the mockery of the envious winds. 
They gibe me from their covert in the pines — 
Yon ragged wood of gnarled pines fretting them 
Like gray ghosts 'gainst the darkness ; they are wroth 



12 GENIVE. 

And acrid in the lees of their spent lives : 

Being prick'd with memories of their prime, they moan 

And cry out bitterly — I hate the pines! 

winds ! O pines ! why do ye mock me so ? 

Jason, come back to me and give the lie 

To these leagued jealousies ! 

[Enter Jason below, so/fly. 

JASON. 

Genive! Genive! 



gp:nive. 



'Tis he! They s»id you would not come else, darling. 



JASON. 



Who spoke this treas-on of me? 



OENIVE. 



Voices 
That haunt the shadows of the trailing night. 



JASON. 



They lied — spoke wanton lies of me, Genive. 
I come not back ! I — had they said the stars 
Will sparkle no more on the breast of Night ; 



OENIVE. 13 

The moon — yon opal moon up in the lieavens 
To-night will mother more nevv-worlded loves 
Than yon bent sea-beach boasts of yellow sands- 
Will melt and wash out all the shining spheres ; 
God is not merciful and Hope is dead — 
They had not lied ; but saying this they spoke, 
They lied most wantonly. 



GENiVE [musing']. 

Ye pines, ye winds. 
For that ye mocked me with your wanton lies 
I pity you — I cannot hate you : all 
The limit of my soul is gorged with love 
So full it doth run over, and no thing 
'Mid all earth's lovelessuess I would not give 
Some share of it : 
In all my being is no room for hate. 



JA80N. 



Genive. 



GENIVE. 

Thou didst come back to me. O Jason ! 
I told the Voices of the night thou would'st. 
Poor plaintive Voices! — are they not the moans 
Of spirits dying loveless plaintively 
Bewailing all the atidness of hearts 
Whose fallow bore but rank and poisonous weeds 
For lack of husbandry? 



14 GENIVE. 

JASON. 

A most fair thought, 
And tempered with sweet sadness ; but are weeds 
Not nature's levied tribute from the heart? 

GENIVE. 

Nay, nay. The sweet green grasses, banks of fiow^^T--, 
And four-leafed clover spring up ere 'tis tilled : 
'Tis only fallow hearts have borne a breast 
Of shining sheaves, then, left neglected, bear 
The stinging thistle and the barbed burr. 
Is't not so ? 

JASON. 

Ay. I did but jest, Genive, 
And echo the stern creed of moralists, — 
Men aged in lovelessness, and matrons sere 
And yellow with the frosts of nipping time. 

GENIVE. 

Shall we grow old and acrid like the rest? 
May not the grasses grow in hearts are old 
As green, the flowers as freshly bloom, the leaves 
Put out luxuriantly, as when they donned 
Their first spring's gala garb to welcome Love? 

JASON. 

In ours, Genive. We shall grow old in years. 
And Time will set his sallow seal on me. 



GENIVE. 15 



Aud oil thy radiance ; he shall touch uor age 
Our hearts with his gray wrinkled hand at all. 



GENIVE. 



What if the fountain of our loves dry up, 
Or turned into another channel, leave 
Our hearts all parch'd and arid ? 



JASON. 



Seest thou yon 
Bright river threading like a thrum of light 
The chasm of Palisades? 



God set it there ! 



GENIVE. 



JASON. 



'Twill flow on so forever. 
So runs the river Love between our hearts ; 
They are the barriers shall wall its flood 
And shape its course for aye. 

GENIVE [abstractedly']. 

I somewhere read, 
Or fancied, or I dreamed, a maiden sat 
Beside a noble river in some far land. 
Bold mountains stretching cloudward till the clouds 



16 GENIVE. 

Stooped down to kiss them, set their basalt breasts 

'Gainst the great river's sides and held them. " Ever," 

The maiden mused—" thou 'It flow on thus forever, 

Pent in the chasm basaltic cloven of God." 

When the ripe seasons rounding wrought a lustrum, 

The maiden came to muse by the river else, 

Loving its nearness to graud nature's God. 

Lo ! in the chasm were sands, and warty toads 

Hopped where argosies had ridden, and snails 

Hung on the ribb'd rocks slimily ; where drooped 

Long locks of Nature's loosed down-trailing hair, 

Lizards slid and braided adders hissed : 

One skilled in cunning whereby towers are built 

That stretch to heaven, and huge-arched bridges wrought 

And hooked on dizzy air, had cleft the rocks. 

And cloven the mountain down to its iron heart. 

Pouring the river into the yawning wound, 

And thence by other shores to its goal the sea ; 

The shores it watered erst were dead and waste. 



JASON. 

What ghoul of heart'sease hath stol'n on thy peace, 
To gnaw it this life's night? 

GENIVE. 

I am so happy ! — 
I think not disembodied spirit, freed 
From all the doubts and achings of this life, 
Pardon 'd of Christ, washed white of sin, and throned 
On God's right hand is happier than I — 
Yet a dim vague something haunts me like a Fear, 



GENIVE. 17 

And darkens my large joy as drops of ink 
Dropped in a tankard of white milk do cloud it. 



JASON. 

On this seventh night of Paradise, Genive ! 
Surely the serpent hath not entered here ; 
Yet I had guessed it from thy sombre speech, 
And guessed thy large temptation and my fall. 
Our banishment, and Cain's red-reekino; hand — 
Guessed — 

GENIVE. 

No, no, Jason ! Draw no such 
Dark etching on the walls of ray glad heart. 
Climb up here nearer to me. 

[ He ascends to the balcony and they embrace. 

Let me feel 
Your hear^ beat echoing all my own heart's joy, 
Your breath sweet on my cheek, your yellow hair 
Wrapt 'bout my neck and mingling with mine own 
Like woof of sunshine with a warp of night, 
Your lips grown on my lips — come closer — so. 
The shadow passes. 



AILEE. 

A Sea View ; Evening. Genive antl Ailee, 
GENIVE. 

The Sea moans piteously to-night ; I think 
Some keen pain must have gashed his very heart. 

AILEE. 

Nay, 'tis remorse ; on such a night as this 
The spirits of slain myriads walk the deep, 
And goad his memory to an agony. 
robber Sea ! 

\_A pause. 

GENIVE. 

Remorse! I think it is. 
It comes up like the hoarse and hollow roar 
Of some deep-chested Titan agonized : 
It is the blended groans of stalwart men, 
His victims in unnumbered battle-storms, 
Wringing the hoar ruffian's ruthless heart. 



AILEE. 19 

Listen ! 'tis shriller new, and pierces through 

The white beards of the breakers nmrmurously : 

'Tis the merg'd cry of babes from mothers torn 

(Like their own pulseful hearts wrench 'd out) and toss'd 

All suppliant, pleading, to the whetted waves. 

Softer and more low and anguish'd now, 

Till 't seems a Titaness' great dying sob : 

This is the mingled sighs of women clasped 

Close in his chill embrace and kissed to death ; 

They wear out all their grief in stifled moans. 

O thou remorseful Sea. 

AILEE. 

O cruel Sea! 



GENIVE. 

Yet I have ever had a strange wnld longing 
To die drowned in the wrathful vast, to feel 
The huge waves tighten round me loverly, 
The Sea's cold kisses on my lips, my breast 
White-shrouded in his tangled hair, my limbs 
Swathed all in cerements of frozen froth. 

1 think I could lie so quietly 
Down in the deep vast waters ! 

\_A pause. 

Kissed to death ! 
Ailee, didst ever have a kiss full on thy lips? — • 

1 mean uot brothers' kisses, cold as dew, 
Nor sisters', tepid, nor yet fathers', tame, 



20 AILEE. 

Friends', given at random on thyneck or cheek, 
Nor mothers', chaste as ice is, on thy brow — 
I mean a lover's kiss burnt on thy lips. 
Leaving a blissful scar. 

AILEE. 

O Madam ! 



GENIVE. 

Ah, but thou hast. 'Tis stamped all over thee : 

It hangs red on thy lips, and breaking hues 

Thy cheeks, thy neck, thy breasts — white hemisphercn 

Half hid in mists of spun gold hair. Nay, more; 

If thou shouldst die to-uight, and one should cut 

Thee deep down to the crimson core, and pluck 

Thy heart out quivering, 'twould be stamped on it. 

AILEE [^sadly']. 
He is dead- 

GENIVE. 

Poor heart ! where is he buried ? 

AILEE. 

Here in my memory. 

GENIVE. 

Then he is not dead ? 



A I LEE. 21 



AILEE. 



To me — or was it I who died? There was 
A death. 

GENIVE [aside]. 

So youug, so fair, so like a child ! 
So late was womanhood stamped on her life! 
Yet a foul tragedy is woven of it ! 
O God ! I think e'en feeble sucklings' lives 
Hold histories of great griefs and large unrest, 
So full of tragedy is this fair world. 

\_To AILEE. 

Wilt thou not tell me thy heart's history, Ailee ? 

AILEE. 

'Twould weary thee ; the very thought of it 
Doth make me O so weary, O so tired ! 

GENIVE. ■ 

Nay. 'twould not tire me, Ailee, and 'twould rest 
Thy poor tired heart to lay it here a while ; 
Here on my own pour it all trembling out. 

AILEE [_after a pause]. 
He was veiy fair. 



22 AILEE. 



GENIVE. 



Ay, all lovere are. 



But mine was peerless. 



GENIVE. 



None had ever peer, 

I ween that lover never 

Was half so fair as mine is. 

O lover mine, nor is nor ever 
Was love so true as thine is. 

Mine is peerless too. Was yours a fisher? 

AILEE \_proudly']. 

Nay, he was a gentleman, and hither 

Came one summer from a city lying 

A thousand leagues there mountainward — a grand 

Old city, built by Cortes' knights, and isled 

In fastnesses of hushed primeval steep. 

[.4 pause. 

O, he was brave as fair. One day a ship, 
Blown on this rugged coast by adverse winds, 



AILEE. 23 

Struck a low-lying ledge of rocks — you line 

O'er which the breakers climb in frothy rage — 

And shivered to atoms in our very teeth. 

Who there so stout of heart as risk his life 

I' the storm-infuriate vast ? The fishers stood 

Blanched on the shore, or wandered up and down, 

Calling each on each to join him, impotent. 

Then, all unused to battling with wild waves, 

He leapt into a boat, cast off the line, 

Turned his pale face a moment seaward, shut 

His hands hard on the bent oars, crying to me, 

" Pray, Ailee ! " then, caught on a heaven-high wave. 

Hurled by wroth Ocean 'gainst the pelted shore 

And bounding back far reefward, hung a speck 

'Gainst the black sky, sunk, and — 

GENIVE. 

O, he was lost ! 

ailep: labstractedly'\. 

Ay, so he was — yes, he was lost — he died. 
I prayed for him soul-suppliant, yet he died, 
Yet he was lost there in that hell of yeast; 
One toiled him, drowning. 



O rash noble soul ! 
Why pit his life 'gainst such exceeding odds? 
How could he, loving you ? 'Twas the last time 
You looked upon him ? 



24 AILEE. 



The last? Would it had been, 
For then his memory had been white with rae. 
And lived a passion-flower within my heart, 
Which I had nursed, and watered with my tears— 
Not a barbed thorn growing up thro' it, as grows 
The germ of sin up through the souls of men, 
Dwarfintj and maiming: them. 



GENIVE. 



He was not drowned 



AILEE. 

no. I think the mermaids, envying me, 
Buoyed him to, venge them for that I had been 
Too happy in his love some little hours ; 

For when the fishers, seeing him sink, and all 

The feted ship's souls deeming lost, toiled up 

The steep lead-hearted to their homes, while I 

Knelt on the wet sands praying a prayer of peace 

For his freed spirit — lo, a mighty wave, 

That seemed half irate Ocean's flood up-swoln, 

Broke on the trembling shore leviathan-like, 

Groaned a great sigh of rage, reel'd backward spent, 

Snarling its impotence at howling feres, 

Leaving him prone upon the salt sands swooning. 

Christ! how my heart swell'd when I saw him there! 

1 crept to him, the froth'd surf raining from him, 
And could have fal'n upon his white fair face, 
And kissed the Sea's moist kisses from his lips, 
And called his fled life back, or mine transfused, 



AILEE. 25 

(^uick with the pulse of love, in his all hush'd — 
But fell down stunned. 

l^A long pause. 

I saw a face more fair, 
More beautiful I thought than angels' faces. 
Turned in mute pallidness to his, her cheek. 
From which the heart-tide had not yet all ebbed, 
Lying against his, all her midnight hair 
Mingled with his, her arms white as an infant's 
Braided about his neck, her breast quiescent, 
From which the rude Sea had torn off the veil, 
Bedded upon his breast and touching it. 
Fondling it thro' the tatters rent by the storm. 
I thought her dead, yet I did envy her 
Her place there — O I envied her as woman, 
Torn by the fangs of Jealousy and Hate, 
And goaded by Despair, ne'er envied rival, 
Viewing her empress of her own heart-realm. 
Living, I could have killed her ; dead, I envied : 
And I swooned . . . Yet she "was not dead — lived. 

[_A pause. 

I saw her radiant as a spirit, bending 
Her great black prayerful eyes on him, 
Thanking him o'er and asking him, "O Basil, 
What can I do or say or give to reward thee? 
Thanks are so dumb !" And he her answering — 
Had I been Basil and Basil I, then Basil 
Had said that, being Basil. Basil said — 
(I'd scorn him in my very soul who would not. 
Yet an he had not, I had loved him triply!) — 



26 ■ AILEE. 

" Thee — give me thyself, thyself, thou brightest 
Star in the constellation of Woman! " 
I saw him kiss the words from off her lips 
As they came tremulously, " Ay, myself." 



[-4 pause. 

I saw them at the altar kneeling, I 
Veiled as a mourner, for my heart was dead. 
Coffined in Basil's ; and I heard her swear 
To love, to cherish, and to honor him, 
And him heard echo huskily the words 
Scarce audibly, " Ay, till death us do part." 

[J. pause. 

I saw them — O they were the fairest two 

E'er made in Allah's image — saw them pass, 

Each on each eyes bending sheen with love, 

Down the long stair-like street all clamorous 

With plaudits of good will and peace and blessings. 

I, standing there upon the beach alone, 

Saw, heard, suffered in silence, making 

No sign — saw while a desolation 

That wrapp'd my soul came up from the Sea's unrest. 

[TAe shadotvs of night enfold them. With a 
look of unutterable loigivf/, she peers 
out into the gloom broods over the 
Ocean. After a long pause — 

I saw their ship sail by and watched it praying 
Glide far out to Sea — I watched it praying 



AILEE. 27 



He might go thro' his life all shadowless, 
Hatiug him cursing him not, loving him — 
And so go down, bearing him out forever. 



GENIVE. 



And yet you did not die ! 



AILEE. 



I could not — Basil lived. 



\_They descend the cliff and disappear in the 
darkness. 



THE MAGDALEN. 

By the Sea — Night. 

A maydaleii with rJisonted dress and disheveled hair standing on a cliff, alone. 

MAGDALEN [soAi]. 

the capacity of human hearts for woe ! 

1 marvel if they never break with it. 
Is tliere no limit to life's agony? 
There seems no form of it unagonized. 
Hear now the 8eat's sad unrequited moan ! 
It comes up to me like a woman's sob, 
The first wild impulse of her sorrow past, 

And she all spent with tears poured on a grave. 

Calling upon him sleeping there to let 

Her lie down quietly and rest by him, 

For she must surely die since he is dead. 

What great pain gnaws thy heart to-night, O Sea? 

how I pity thee in thy large grief! 

1 would lie down with thee and list to it. 
And tell thee all the measure of my own. 
I could lull thee with my dole, I think, 

And thou couldst soothe me with thy larger woe. — 
(Sad waves, I know ye would not harass me 



THE MAGDALEN. 



29 



A?: man hath baited me here in this life: 
The sad are always gentle.) — I would lie 
Quiescent in thy breast, content. — (O waves, 
Reach up and clasp me to thy liege, the Sea!) 

[_She draws nearer to the cliff's edge, where 
the surf breaks over her in rainy 
7nists. Kneeling as in prayer, her 
eyes up-east, she continues : 

Alone, alone, alone ! 

'Mid all the myriads not one 

Genive can call her own. 

Alone, alone, alone ! 

The last to call me friend is gone ; 

Hence I am banned, unknown. 

No roof shall shelter me. 

No tongue condone my fault's degree, 

None veil my infamy. 

Of all earth's millions who 
Genive dare give his friendship to. 
Or own he ever knew ? 

Driven from heart and home, 
Unfriended to the Sea I come. 
Bearing my error's sura. 

Even the stars of night 

A little year since shone so bright. 

Me now deny their light. 

When I was white they vied 
To light me to my lover's side. 
Nor ever me denied. 



30 THE MAGDALEN. 

O stars ! I am not quite 

All stained — I've still some weft of white : 

Give me one look to-night ! 

Give me, since all has died — 
All else — a look to ruth allied, 
And I am satisfied ! 

Oh ! I can better dare 

The mien of scorn all mortals wear 

Than thy oblivion bear. 

If but to chasten, why 

One last sign give me ere I die — ■ 

Look where I pleading lie ! 

Vain ! — ruth died when I fell. 
Is there no pity but in hell, 
Where I am doomed to dwell? 

Ay, thou wilt pity me, 

waves, O unrequited Sea ! 

1 come, I come to thee ! 

\_She rises, and with a wild look backward 
mto the darkness, bends her body for- 
* ward for the death-leap. A figure — - 

that of a woman — dad in white ap- 
pears and clasps her hard to her bosom. 
A struggle ensues, in ivhich the Mag- 
dalen is drawn away from the brink 
of the precipice, and falls down in 
terror to the earth. A flash of light- 
ning reveals the pale features of a 
beautiful girl. Clasping the fallen 
woman's head to her heart, she whis- 
pers : 



THE MAGDALEN. 31 

Not all friendless, sister. 

MAGDALEN. 

Art thou a spirit ? 

MAIDEN. 

Nay, only a woman like you. 

MAGDALEN. 

Like me ! 
Hush ! — thou know'st not what 1 am. 



A sister 
I know you are, stricken ; T ask no more. 

MAGDALEN [^asidel. 

She dne-! not guess the measure of my shame. 
I'll tell her, and so banish her, that I 
May lie down letless in my warm wide bed 
With ray new-wedded liege and lover, Death. 

[To the 3fai(hii. 

Come closer — put the hollow of thine ear 
Against these scarlet lips, so none may hear — 



32 THE MAGDALEN. 

Not even God — my purple secret — so : 
I am — a wanton ! 

MAIDEN. 

And yet my sister. 
MAGDALEN [recoUing from her]. 
Know'st thou the fearful import o ' that word ? 

MAIDEN. 

I guess it, and still say — my -lister. 

MAGDALEN- 

Child !— 
Thou art a very child — thou canst not guess it. 
Thy ruth, thy gentleness, thy very presence 
Impeach thy words. Daughter of Eve, a wanton 
Is woman wrested from her high estate 
And dragged thence downward to a man's low level. 

MAIDEN. 

Why, surely then this thing you are is noble. 
I have — 

MAGDALEN. - 

A lover ? 



THE MAGDALEN. 83 



MAIDEN. 



How could you guess it? — 
My Ulrich is not low, not base^a man 
Like other men — that is, some other men 
Are like my Ulrich — yet not quite like him. 
O you should see how manly a man he is — 
Tall and frank and true, — 



MAGDALEN. 

* Tall and frank and true ' ! 

\_Aside. 

Ah, what an egotist is babbling Love! 

Like other men — yet stay, not quite like them ! 

Thou lily-bell of womanhood, God grant 

He may not be quite like them ! Frank and true ! 

How frank was mine, how true — how manly true! 

She prattles of nobility, sweet infant, 

And says the thing I am is noble eke, 

Being like the idol man she bows down to ! 

If I were half her arch-god Ulrich seems. 

There were no other being in Allah's guise 

One twentieth tithe as perfect — save her Ulrich. 

I too once held men less than angels are 

But by the utt'rest monad floats in space, 

Because forsooth my Jason was a man ! 

Nay, Genive, an thou'ldst have this novice learn 

The utter import of the thing thou art, 

Thou needs must teach from text-books else than man. 



34 THE MAGDALEN. 

[To the Maiden. 
I am — dost ever read thy bible, child? 

MAIDEN. 

Surely ; all read the bible. 



MAGDALEN. 

Ay, ay— all ! 
Rememberest thou the story of a woman 
Who came for refuge to the side of Christ — 
So vile a thing her sisters spat on her, 
And men — true, noble men like Ulrich — stoned her? 

MAIDEN. 



Yes, yes — a piteous tale of cruelty 

Has ever made my heart run out in tears- 



MAGDALEN, 

She was a wanton, no more vile than I. 

[J. pause. 
Not shrink from me as from a naked Sin 1 



THE MAGDALEN. 35 

MAIDEN. 

Nay, love you still. Had I been flesh wheu Christ 

Built up the cordun of His mercy twixt 

The Magdalen and man's hard cruelty, 

I had stooped down and kissed His mantle's hem, 

And twin'd my arras about her whom He whiten'd, 

Ev'n as I now twine them around you, loving. 

MAGDALEN [shrinking from her, aside], 

I marvel if the angels visit earth 

And take on forms of flesh for ministry, 

Or if there still be spirits ministrant 

Who hover near this troubled world of ours 

To succor whom God's every image scorns. 

Surely 'tis no form of sensate flesh 

Doth fold a purple Sin hard on her heart 

And whisper piteously, ' I love you still.' 

[ To the Maiden, 

Spirit or what thou art so more than human, 
I would I might look on thy sinless face, 
All free from sin's dark lines and cruelty's, 
And read in thy two eyes thy history — 
A life unsullied with an evil thought ! 
I think 'twould make me whiter by some jot, 
And leave my soul less dappled ere I die. 
An thou art not an angel, heaven is wronged. 
And earth made holier by thy presence here. 

[A flash of lightning reveals the features of 
the Maiden. 



36 THE MAGDALEN. 

That face! I saw it in a dream last night. 

It hovered o'er me suppliant then, pursued 

By some dark-visaged Danger — some strange shape 

That — first a shadow void and changeful e'er — 

Grew up thro' all the unseen forms of things 

To something somewise human, toiling thee; 

Then forth from out the shadow whilst thou pray'd 

Grew dark and sinister a bearded man, 

Who vanishing in mists revealed thee prone 

Stretched on the bare earth pale as Death's white face. 

Save on thy cheek a sole deep scarlet mark, 

Which ev'n thy tears could not wash out or dim : 

And then the heap'd waves touching me, I woke . . . 

What art thou? 



MAIDEN. 



Only a woman. 



MAGDALEN. 



A woman — 
Only a woman ! Ah, how slight a thing! 
Frail after-thought of God for man's caprice ; 
A pale excrescence on fair Nature's face ; 
A dream — light fancy set to soul and sense ; 
A faint white flame, lit now and now anon 
To guide men heavenward, puffed out with a breath ; 
An ampler puppet which the larger child 
E'er wearying of like children turns him from 
To seek some other toy yet unpossess'd ! 
Why earnest thou here? 



THE MAGDALEN. 37 



MAIDEN. 



To hear what messages 
The waves bore up from Ulrich. 



MAGDALEN. 



Messages ! 
The language of the Sea is ever sad. 
And illy suits the light soft mood of love. 
What messajjes? 



MAIDEN. 



T nightly list me here 
At the still hour of twilight to low words 
Come up o'er — whisper'd by the courier waves. 
This was our compact when he kissed me there 
Five long years gone — there on the dimpled sands, 
His mates all clamorous (for the sails were set): 
' Here list, Dolores, for my soft good night ; 
Whatever clime, whatever seas I roam, 
I'll whisper it to the waves and they to you.' 
I listen and I hear, ' Good night, my sweet;" 
I answer and the waves repeat, ' Good night.' 

MAGDALEN [aSl'cZe]. 

O brightest jewel in the crown of life, 

A heart's full faith ! O opal of gemmed heaven, 

Dropped in this night, of earth to be its sun! 



88 THE MAGDALEN. 

The heart can boast thee for its dowry, tho' 
The rude dark-dappled hand of Treason sack 
Its cities and lay waste its fair demesnes, 
Is Croesus-rich. Thou art the talisraan 
Doth touch a lie, and lo ! it beams a truth, 
Doth gild a treason till it stands a liege. 
Bridge o'er the chasms of despair and doubt, 
Dam up the rivers of suspicion, stair 
The steep where gleams the temple of content, 
And thence hew rundles up to God. But woe — • 
Black damning woe— is any poor heart faithless. 

[To the Maiden. 

Thou said'st the waves brought messages to thee. 
Do they ne'er fail thee? 

MAIDEN. 

Days and nights have come, 
And lengthened to the weeks, and weeks to months 
Have joined them, till the many-numbered score 
Doth tell a lustrum of memorial years, 
Yet never day they brought no benediction. 
Sometimes 'tis plaintive, fraught with eager sighs 
For home and me; anon 'tis joyous, glad, 
And wakes the winds with laughter; else the waves 
Toiled with the tempest lisp it thro' the storm 
In trembling whispers : but 'tis always gentle, 
And tempered sweet with love and constancy. 

MAGDALEN. 

To-night — what said the waves to-night, sweet houri ? 



THE MAGDALEN. 39 

MAIDEN. 

Their speech was utter aod set all to love: 

At first 'twas broken, like the timid tongue 

Of recent lovers ; soon it grew more bold, 

And swelled up musically to full notes 

Of larger joy ; then overmastering bopnds, 

It broke into a grand refrain of passion 

Thrilled the fibers of my soul till they 

Caught up leoliau-like the symphony 

And echoed and re-echoed it — 'I love thee!' 

Then sinking — sinking — sinking — died 

In sighs of perfect rhythm, whence 'good night' 

Came floating like a thought scarce audibly. 

Did you not hear it? 

MAGDALEN. 

Yes — yes — I heard it. 
\^Aside. 

O Sea, e'en thou art James— languaged like 
That other form of nature, sovereign man ! 

[To the Maiden. 

Maiden — but stay. I turn iconoclast, 

Whom Fate hath shown the true unglamour'd faith I 

The Hindu I have heard is happy till 

Some nomad saint, some wan evangelist, 

Creeps in the temple of his ancient trust 



40 THE MAGDALEN. 

And glooms it with a newer, till he doubts 
If either be the true one : thou art joyed 
With thine idolatry, and thou wilt be 
Till some evangelist of withered love, 
Herself imquiet, gloom thy heart with doubt. 
Yes — yes — I heard it. 

MAIDEN. 



Yet you would have — 



MAGDALEN. 

List! 
Dost thou not hear the loud Sea calling me? 
He's angered with my loitering. — Yes, I come, 
I come, Sea! — One touch, sweet, ere I pass. 
So I may bear a charm — so I may show 
The pallid pressure when ill spirits toil 
My soul in passing — so : whom ang-els touch 
The demons may not harass .... Sweet, good-bye- 
A last, unending, agonized good-bye. 
Bless thee Christ ! — my sins are paler for it, 
And thou — thou art not purpled with the touch, 
So white as opal Purity art thou. — 
I come — I come ! 



\_She rushes away from the Maiden s embrace 
and leaps from the precipice into the 
sea. The Maiden, dumb, hurries to 
the edge of the cliff. Peering down 
into the dark waves, a flash of light- 



THE MAGDALEN. 41 

ning reveals the Magdalen risen from 
the depths. A smile lights up her 
pale features for an instant, then she 
sinks forever into the deep, murmuring 
back to the Maiden : 



Weep not, sweet spirit — smile — I rest. 



BASIL. 

High on a headland, where huge waves 
Beat thundering from a thousand leagues 
'Gainst gray basaltic battlements, 
A sole woe-withered pilgrim stands,' 
Bare-browed, his blank locks driven far. 
Like shreds of sea-foam tempest-swept. 
He seems the oldest, saddest man 
Time ever blanched or sorrow bruised. 
Lo ! answering now his moan with moan. 
He fronts the Sea, while seas of siwf 
Rain on his desert-darkened face : 

Purposeless, drifting 

Over the desert 

Of the Journey of Life, 

Ev'n as the sands drift 

Over the desert 

Of the Journey of Death ;* 

Weary of living 

And fearing to die, 

Death e'er beguiling 



* A desert in Mexico, called Jornada del Mueita— Journey of Death. 



BASIL. 43 



And clinging to life, 
I follow the phantom— 
The fleeing eidolon — 
The spirits name Hope. 
Ever the phantom is 
Beckoning, ever 
The eidolon lures me 
Over the desert. 

With nothing to hope for, 
I journey aweary, 
And follow the phantom 
Of Nothing named Hope, 
Knowing I may not 
Realize aught, 
I cling to the eidolon 
Phantom called Hope- 
Vanishing mirage 
(Form evanescent} 
Magical Hope — 
Shade of a shadow, 
Soul of a spirit. 
Tragical Hope — 
The beautiful siren 
The demons name Hope- 
Eidolon, fanciful 
Phantom-fiend Hope. 

Beckons the phantom, 
And whispers a fair lie — 
Fair and so perfectly 
Set to my passion, 
I listen, believing, 
Knowing so surely 
■Still 'tis a foul lie. 



44 BASIL. 

Fatal as Upas. 
But 'tis so beautiful. 
Rare and syraphonic 
A lie, that I uever 
Grow weary of beiug 
Under its spell. 

'Tis no harsh dutiful 
Measure, this beautiful 
False and rare story 
Hope is e'er whispering 
In my charm'd ear. 
Could you but listen to — 
Do you not, weary one? — 
Words so enchantingly 
Low, soft and tender spoke. 
You, even as I do, 
Would her importunate 
False protestatious love 
Better than Truth's. 



For Truth is so drearily, 
Wearily circumspect, 
Crooning of treasures lost. 
Past opportunities ; 
Now for what might have been 
Sighing, and now for what 
Should have been : 
Truth is so dutiful ! 



Truth is a jilted jade, 
Acrid and jealous. 
Hope is a plighted maid. 
Trustful and tender — O 



BASIL. 45 

Wondrously trustful — 
Viewing all humaukiud 
Thro' the fair eidolon 
Lens of a lover. 

Whispers the phantom Hope: 

Come unto me, all 

Ye who are weary 

And heavy laden, 

Rest I will give ye. 

Whispers the phantom Hope 

Softly to me — O 

So softly, I fancy 

Her love it lies tenderly 

Here in my breast — 

So sweetly, I fancy 

Her love it lies trustfully 

Here in the haven 

Of its natural rest, 

Whispering to me 

The unspoken passion 

Of a passionate life. 

Truth whispers : Not for thee 

Burns the rare passion 

Of passionate Ailee. 

Thy passion for Ailee 

Is evil, comporting 

111 with thy duty. 

Duty ! O saturnine 

Omen of weariness, 

Un uttered dreariness 

Deep in my heart! 

Out of my memory 



46 BASIL. 



Burn I all trace of thee 
Now with the pa.ssion 
That burns in my heart — 
With the passion for Ailee 
That glows in ray hear.. 

Hope whispers : Only 
For thee burns the passion 
Of passionate Ailee. 
Duty is dutiful, 
Worshipping Faith — 
Faith is a beautiful 
Passionless wraith : 
Cold as the marble is, 
Duty and Faith. 

So, to the fair lie — 
Fair and so perfectly 
Set to my passion — 
I listen, believing, 
Knowing so surely - 
Still 'tis a foul lie, 
Fatal as Upas. 
But 'tis so beautiful. 
Rare and symphonic 
A lie, that I never 
Grow weary of being 
Under its spell : 
Hopelessly hoping 
Ailee may rest 
(Knowing she may not) 
Here in my breast — 
Hoping she one day 
May lie in my breast — 



BASIL. 47 

Trustfully refuge seek 
Here in the haveu 
Of her natural rest — 
I listen, believing, 
Knowing she may not. 

[An old man in the garb of a hunter appears. 
HUNTER laside']. 

How sad, how desolate, how agonized ! 

A hunter? Nay, he seems not of our guild. 

If his wild eager eyes be any sign, 

He's hunted more than hunter: I have seen 

The same look in a netted ocelot's eye. 

When the toiled beauty spent lay pain-unnerved, 

Quiescing to despair, yet hope unyielding. 

I'll speak to him. Good morning, stranger. 

BASIL \_startled']. 



Who said good morning? \_Sees the hunter. 

Why do you steal upon my reverie like 

An Indian stalking foes? I sought this steep 

Because I hate the ways of man, believing 

I might here shut me from his peering eye. 

Pray leave me. 

HUNTER. 



I would not any wise intrude — 



48 BASIL 



Then leave rae. 



BASIL 



HUNTER. 



As you will ; but ere I go 
It were but courteous — 



BASIL. 



Spare your courtesy- 
ril take it fj)r granted — go. 



HUNTER. 



Unwittingly 
I overheard some fragments of your speech, 
And— 

BASIL. 

Thou ! what if thou didst? I spoke in runes 
To such as thou : my speech was of the heart. 

HUNTER. 

I have a heart. 

BASIL. 

Thou! — a red-arteried heart? 



BASIL. ^9 



HUNTER. 



It bleeds when prick' d — is that assurance? 



BASIL. 



Has't ever bled? has't scars gashed deep iu it 
That baffle surgery? 



HUNTER. 



BASIL. 



One. 



Then we are brothers. 
Prithee sit down and tell me in what war 
Thou 'st wounded. 

HUNTER. 

I' the War of Hearts. 

BASIL. 

I fought in that war — 'twas a sanguine fight 
How wast thou wounded ? 

HUNTER. 

Mortally i' the soul, 



50 BASIL. 

lu this wise : 

A maiden exquisite 

As the brides in Asgard are 

Crept in ray heart of hearts 

And lay with my soul one night — ■ 

Crept in so silently 

I had not guessed she came, 

But Peace, my soul's mistress, 

Finding her there. Unrest 

Bribed to abide with me 

In the guise of the maiden e'er, 

And she was divorced for aye 

From my infatuate soul. 

A year and a day crept by — 
A cycle of pain to me — 
Still the maiden slept 
E'er in my heart of hearts, 
Fro'ward her cruelty 
Had banished my darling Peace. 
Wan and exceeding old, 
Hoar in a year and day. 
Worn and aweary, I 
Questioned the maiden why 
She had beleaguer'd me. 
Then, with an arch surprise. 
Answered she in this wise : 
"Why ? 'Twas no fault of mine ; 
There was no fault but thine — 
Sin culpa de mia. 

"Thou camest unbidden," I — 
" Thou didst not banish me" — 
"Thou banished my darling Peace' 



BASIL. 51 

*' Thou didst not bid her stay" — 

" Thou fettered my reason with 

Thy passion-compelling eyes" — 

" Then in them the error lies" — 

" Thy nectarine wine-red lips" — 

" Then whoe'er their nectar sips 

Doth drink of the error's fount" — 

"Thy bosom of madding mould" — 

" Let it the error hold" — 

" Thine infinite tenderness" — 

" Ah ! therein the true fault is" — 

" Thy touch as a torch of fire 

Doth kindle a mad desire" — 

" I had not touch'd thee e'er, 

Knowing the fault was there" — 

" Thy sighs when our lips were blent" — 

" In sighs is much error pent" — 

" Thy glances eloquent of 

Indies of voiceless love" — 

" Guile in a maiden's glance 

Dwelleth by some ill chance" — 

" Thy silence and drooping eyes" — 

" Abode of the silent lies, 

Woman's ally in love. 

Dower, and treasure-trove" — 

" Thf^ spell in thy driven hair 

Dipp'd in the swart midnight" — 

" Certes, I grant thee there 

Dwelleth a mickle might ; 

Many a' weening wight 

Hath found in a lady's hair 

Blown by the wanton winds 

In tempests across his cheek 

Yearnings I may not speak : 

Thus did the primal Eve 



52 BASIL. 

Adam's error achieve, 
And millions the apple o'er 
Have thus to the apple's core 
Tasted, and some I hear 
Have died of the serpent there"— 
" The amaranth in thy cheek" — 
" I did not set it there" — 
" The bobolink in thy laugh" — 
" Nay, 'twas a mocking bird" — 
" Thou didst not tell me so"— 
" Did e'er a maiden thee ?" — 
" Not what thy passion hath 
Spoken, but what thou ne'er 
Uttered, save with a look, 
Sign, or so eager clasp : — 
Yet 'twas no fault of thine, 
Yet 'twas no fault but mine, 
I did my darling Peace 
Exile, and worship thee 
With damning idolatry ! " 

" Nay " — with her bobolink's 
Laugh, that enchanted me 
E'en in my agony — 
" Say 'twas my bosom's fault. 
Or my so erring eyes'. 
Lips', or my tenderness.' — 
Say 'twas my madding touch — 
Say 'twas my swooning sighs, 
Glances so eloquent, 
Silence and driven hair — 
Say 'twas the amaranth. 
Laugh of the bobolink. 
Voice in each passionate 
Pressure of breast and thigh, 



BASIL. 53 



Warm cheek and pulse aflame- 
Held the grave error ; 
Not that 'twas thine or mine — 
We were unwitting. 
But thou hast loved me well 
Now for a year and day — 
Long for a love to live ! — 
And I'm aweary. 
Woo and wed Peace again — 
One who can love a year 
Meriteth Hymen's realm — 
Pass, and be happy else, 
Plodding and dutiful." 



\_A long pause. 



Aged aeons I journey'd 

Over the hemispheres 

In quest of my darling Peace, 

Asking in every zone 

From Thule to Farther Ind, 

Meeting afar with none 

Knowing her, till one day, 

Deep in a quiet vale. 

Far from the haunts of men, 

Out of the ways of strife, 

One my darling said 

Now was another's wife: 

Faith, my ancient foe, 

Woo'd and won her when 

I had banished her. 

Deep in the valley's fold 

I found her sitting by 

Her liege in the calm twilight, 

Children twain — Surcease 



54 BASIL. 

And Joy — upon her knee, 

My own first-born, Content, 

(Grown to a rosy boy, 

Fair and frank and brave 

As the sons of the Southland are,) 

Waking the echoes with 

A song I had taught hira ere 

I was divorced from Peace. — 

O 'twas a scene to wring 

The soul of a man perturb'd. — 

Veiled in the shadows, I 

Crept to my darling's side. 

Touching her mantle's hem ; 

But as a stranger she 

Bent her soft eyes on me, 

Knowing me not, I'd grown 

So palsied, sear and so wan. 

Chastened, I neared my boy. 

Asking, "Who taught thee that 

Song?" " My father," he. 

"Who is thy father?" I. 

" He " — with a distant look 

Afar in the past — " is dead." 

" T am thy father," I 

Whispered the singer. " Nay, 

He was a youth as fair 

As the knights of the Holy Grail ; 

Thou art a bent old man. 

Bowed with thy weight of years, 

And over thy ancient brow 

Furrows are chased of woe. 

Wrong to another done, 

Care, and a keen remorse. 

My father was good and true, 

My mother says, and died 



BASIL. 55 



One night of a fever far 
In the South — a fever named 
Unrest — remaining so." 
Blessing my darling then 
That she my memory white 
Had kept with him, I crept 
(Kissing her mantle's hem) 
Out in the shadows, out 
Alone in the silent night, 
Bearing my burden, but 
Bearing a braver heart 
And better. 



\_A pause. 



The years are born 
And die, and I wander still 
Over the hemispheres. 
Haunted by phantoms of 
The maiden false as fair 
Who crept in my heart of hearts 
That night of woe, who e'er 
Whisper in voices loud 
As the voice of Conscience is — 
" Sin culpa de mia." 

[^Basil rising approaches the hunter. The 
hunter brooding gazes out through the 
mists to the blue vast beyond. After 
a long pause, with a great sigh that 
seems by memory up-wrung Jrom his 
heart's depths, moanfully he repeats 
the words — 

Sin — culpa — de mia ! 



56 BASIL. 

BASIL. 

Christ! is there aught but agony in life? 
I hear it from the lips of men, see women 
Weep it from out their hearts in molten drops ; 
Babes borne into the world on wails of it, 
And spent souls groping graveward moaning it. 
I marvel if the grave will echo it. 
Hunter, why do you live? 



HUNTER. 

Alas !— Why die ? 

BASIL. 

Ah, why ! — that you may gain immortality ? 
Then live — cling to life — fight for it, 
Immortality — what is it? Another 
Degree of anguish, some larger eternity 
Of pain. 

HUNTER. 

Then why die? 
BASIL [bitterly']- 

So that thine agony 
May not pall — 'tis keener there. 



BASIL. 57 

HUNTER. 



In death ? 



BASIL. 



Ay, in the Hereafter men call 
Death — in the illimitable Hereafter. 



HUNTER. 

But my darling lives. 

BASIL. 

She is dead to thee; 
She can never more be thine. 

HUNTER. 



In Heaven ? 



BASIL. 



Heaven ! Have stout men turned to children? 

Have iron-will'd men falFn to imbeciles ? 

Babbling of Heaven ! Heaven — what is it ? 

A place of peace. Hast thou a thing called conscience? 



58 BASIL, 



HUNTER. 



Alas ! yes. 



BASIL. 



And thou dost babble of Heaven ! 
The immortal spark in man named conscience 
Can never die, can never rest, lives ever 
'Tis the imperishable curse of nature's God, 
8ent down tl>ro' all time's dolorous mutations 
From the Garden of Eden. 'Twas the ban God-spoken 
'Pon Eve, 'pon Adam, and their sons and daughters — 
" Go, and bear with ye evermore a conscience ! " 
O that 1 might crush it out of me! 
It haunts me ever like a pallid Fear. 
Some grand heroic souls have conquered it, 
And chained it to a rock where break the tides 
That roll up ceaseless from the sea Unrest. 
They were the mightiest spirits born of woman. 
By whom the Alexanders of this earth 
Were less than Liliputs — they were content, 
For they had compassed conscience — more than worlds! 
O enviable, O heroic, happy souls! .... 
An thou canst quell thy conscience, thou canst rest; 
An thou canst kill thy conscience. Heaven is thine: — 
Thou canst not quell or kill it. 



HUNTER [^aj'ter a long pause]. 
I heard you sing of hope — 



BASIL. 59 



BASIL. 



'Twas a memory — 
A phautom^nothiug more — a mirage 
Of the braiu — the puny offspring 
Of Imagery — a sickly child 
Of distorted Thought — a miscarriage 
Of Mind in her nonage. 



HUNTER. 



It touch'd my heart. 



BA.SIL. 



Because we are feres in adversity. 
The outcast loves the outcast — are we not 
Outcasts of fate? Ours is common cause. 
Do you dwell in the city yonder ? 



HUNTER. 

I am a hunter. My home is the world, 

My abiding-place where the shadows 

Of night enfold me, my shelter 

The vault of heaven, my companions 

The mute white stars. In the city 

I chafe and fret like a caged ocelot. 

I hate the faces of men, they are so hard, 

Like the hard coin they stamp their souls with. 

I hate the faces of women, they mock me so. 

Do you dwell down in the city ? 



60 BASIL, 

BASIL. 

I tarry there, bound : I am a convict, 

HUNTER \_scornfully']. 
A felon ! 

BASIL. 

Mine was no common theft. 
That you should shrink from nie, spurn me. 
I was no vulgar thief; I was a genius 
In the art of felony, and aimed at heights 
Towering above the herd. I was 
The Csesar of felons, the Antony 
Of robbers, the Napoleon, of thieves. 
I sacked the fairest life God ever builded. 
My booty was a maiden's ravished heart. 
Stol'n from her, pinioned, borne in triumph 
Thro' all the journeyiugs of ray crazed caprice, 
Bearing the impress of my ownership, 
So none should seeing this e'er covet it, 
I grew aweary, carried it back to her, 
Sitting disconsolate, waste, in the ruins 
Of her young life, and cast it at her feet, 
A broken, a sullied thing ev'n beggars scorn'd, 

HUNTER. 

You said you were a convict. 



BASIL. 61 



BASIL. 



So I am : 
Impeached by Memory, and arraigned l)efore 
The high court of Conscience, I was judged 
Guilty, condemned, and sentenced 
To life-imprisonment with one I loathe — 
Sentenced to drag thro' the years with her 
Chained to me, bound to me with bands 
Indissoluble — Hymen's bands. 
Now, as I toil up and down the earth. 
Men point the finger of scorn at me, 
Crying, Basil, the Cardicide ! 



HUNTER. 

How just, how terrible a sentence ! 

I pity you. Adieu. Our ways have crossed. 

And we have gloomed eachother's lives an instant, 

Not unprofitably, I fancy, each 

Having in each discovered agonies 

As keen as his, and having forgotten his 

In pity a little instant. Adios. 



\_The hunter descends the cliff and disappears. 
BASIL [ctjter a pause']. 

Gone, bearing his anguish away with him ! 
'Tis the old, old story oft-repeated. 
O Conscience, thou austere accuser, 
Thou inexorable foe of human peace, 



62 BASIL. 

Thou clamorous censor of men's tragedies, 
None can escape thee ! 

\_A storm bursts upon him. 



God — if there be a God — 
Doth speak to his fallen daughter. 
His speech — how grandly it breaks and echoes 
Across the expanse of heaven ! how grandly 
The hexameters of thunder, the spondees 
Of tempest, utter his wrath sublime ! — 
His speech is of Paradise — of Eden — 
The serpent — Eve's large temptation — 
The fall and the banishment. 
Eve, dost thou hear the impeachment? — 
Thou didst eat of the tree of Conscience ! 



[ife stands breasting the storm. A thunder- 
bolt shatters a venerable pine at his 
feet, and it falls moaning to the earth. 



Broken like a reed ! So is the life of man 
Broken bv the bolts of Conscience. 



[ The storm passes away.. Basil descends the 
cliff and disappears. 



LAST OF THE DRYADES 



Far from the fret of the breaker, 

Far from the wrinkled steeps, 

Far from the reef where the wrecker 

Nightly his vigil keeps ! 

Far from the ways of traffic, 

Out of the trader's toils 

Into the ways seraphic. 

Out of my demon's coils ! 

Far from the mills of Mammon, 

Far from the wiles of woman, 

Far and away from the aching 

Of human hearts that are breaking ! 

Far from the toiling city, 

Out of the babylon 

Of mimes in the pitiless town 

Into the ways of pity ! 

Far from the passion-fever 

Burning, burning ever 

My soul, consuming never 

My soul — an ill that neither 



64 LAST OF THE DRYADES. 

Kills nor dies — O fever! 
Far from a civilization 
Aging a man in youth, 
Out of the desolation 
Wrought of a dearth of ruth I 
Out of the passion-gleam, 
Past the frontier of steam, 
Where nor click of the car yet 
Sounds, nor the telegraph 
Dins in my ear the scarlet 
Sum of the nations' grief, 
Nor sickles a cosmosheaf 
Of broken faith, and o'erbroken 
Plights of a troth o'erspokeu. 
Loves that are dead in a day, 
Hearts in a little hour 
Wrecked by the subtle power 
Held by a maiden o'er 
Bearded and bronzed clay, 
Hopes that are withered and sear 
All in their natal year — 
Out of the teeming high-ways 
Into the quiet by-ways ! 

IL 

Lulled by the bobolink 
And robin, I lie, nor think, 
Idling my life away 
In my hammock a many day. — 
Nor think ! ah that is nepenthe. 
That is the sole surcease, 
The only abiding peace, 
God in his mercy sent the 
Toilers of earth — nor think ! 
Think of it, baited one. 



LAST OF THE DRYADES. fio 

Ho earger, so pale and wan, 
iStriving to win a fame 
Prouder than others won, 
Htriving to carve a name 
Higher than any can, 
Striving to gain a love 
Ever more constant than 
Maiden to mortal gave — 
Striving ever in vain ! 
Think of the days and nights 
Of thought that charred your brain 
Down to a shriveled pain I 
Think of the brazen nights, 
Think of the leaden days, 
That builded the bitter years. 
Barren of any tears, 
Bearing but thistle-thoughts, 
Barbed, tigerish yearnings. 
Turbulent passion-burnings: 
Think — and nevermore think ! 

III. 

Here is an euthanasy 
Of toil and the strivings vain — 
(Ever the raomus Gain 
Shunneth the timid daisy) 
Never the mammoth dailies. 
Moist with the mingled tears 
Of hearts in the hemispheres. 
Pour in my ear a tale is 
Burdened with woman's sighs, 
Laden with orphans' cries, 
Printed in blood, till Justice 
Veils her face at the lust is 
Rife, and the agony 



66 I-AST OF THE DRYADES. 

Wrung from his fellow-man 
By man in his cruelty. 
Never the fever comes 
Here in the quietude. 
Peace in the highest seems 
Ever the perfect clays 
Here in the leafy ways. 
Never the churlish, rude, 
Clamorous voice of Strife 
Chastens my charmed life 
Here in the solitude. 
Only a lulling voice 
Sighing a song of peace 
Under the twining trees 
Maketh my heart rejoice; 
Low and as magical 
As the voice of a woman is, 
Stilling the tragical 
Voice of my demon — 'tis 
The voice of a" spirit dwells 
Only in leafy vales, 
Only in silent ways 
Far from the diu of drays, 
Far from the rush of mills 
Near to the hush of rills, 
Far from the thoroughfare 
Near to the plashing mere, 
Out of the babylon 
Deep in the way unknown : 
Spirit of Passion's-ease, 
Last of the Dryades ! 

IV. 

Oh ! 'tis the lotus-land 

Of the age of Steam : I stand 



LAST OF THE DRYADE8. 

Isled in the midst of seas 

Of clover and twining trees, 

And oceans of rolling corn 

Fretting the reefs of thorn, 

Marged with a continent 

Of primeval wood, content. 

Care is forgotten here. 

Far the receding near. 

All in the hectic past 

Lies in a memory-raist : 

Wife of my aged youth, 

Ambition ; children. Toil, 

Strife and the wan Turmoil ; 

Friends — what friends ! I never 

Honored a friend who ever. 

Tried in the crucible 

Of friendship, served me well ; 

Home — fiiir eidolon 

To many a homeless one, 

To me an eidolon 

Unlovely, having none 

Save in a hollow name, 

Save in a shallow fame 

Void of a meager truth. 

Better a vagabond 

On the face of the arid earth. 

Than home and a fatherland 

Where love is a waning dearth. 

And Faith is a fickle queen 

With a dragon's eye of green, 

And Trust unbidden waits 

Weeping without the gates 

Of a heart forever shut, — 

Not unremembered, but 

Never regretted, all 



()8 LAST OF THE DRYADES. 

I cherished so long aud well, 
Cherished so long ago, 
Cherished so well in woe: 
Perish the memory o'er 
Cherish I nevermore ! 

V. 

Idling now by the sea 
Quiescent, and listlessly 
Viewing the clover-surf 
Fretting the stubble-turf, 
Messages come up to me. 
Come from over the sea, 
Come from an alien gone, 
Come from a world unknown 
Hitherto unto me, 
Come up so silently 
Out of the voiceless sea. 
Low must I beud my ear 
Lest the refrain they bear 
Die on the languid air : 

1. 

" Out of the realm of the Dutiful, 
Here in the realm of the Beautiful, 

Dwell with me ever ; 
Dwell with me here in my Dreamland, 
Out of the strife of thy ISteamland, 

Turbulent never. 



" Dwell with me out of resentment. 
Here in the vale of Contentment 
Languorous lying 



LAST OF THE DRYADES. 69 

Far from a futile ambition, 
Near to the rill of Fruition, 
Where is no vying. 

3. 

" Here in the heart of the wild wood 
Dear to the heart of thy childhood 

Standeth a Palace, 
Built for me by the builder 
Of dreams at the forge of the gilder 

Of Borealis. 



" Dwell with me here in my Palace ; 
Never the arrows of Malice 

Or Envy shall wound thee. 
Dwell with me here as my lover; 
Ever my spirit shall hover 

An aigis around thee." 

Lo ! 'tis the voice of the Spirit — 
Spirit of Passion 's-ease — 
Seeming more low as I near it 
Now in my ecstasies. 
Lo ! from the fairest of valleys 
Towers her stately Palace ; 
She from the open portal 
Beckons her lover-mortal. 
Spirit, I come, and never 
Shall demon our souls dissever I 



70 LAST OF THE DRYAD KS. 

VL 

Wound in my love's enibrace.s 
Tightly, as twining laces 
Vine e'er its lover oak, 
Time burns no cruel traces 
Into my heart, or effaces 
Aught that my love awoke. 
Days that were ages are instants, 
Nights that were cycles are flashes. 
Nights to my conscience were lashes 
Now to my conscience are min'strants. 
All the day long, never thinking, 
I with my love — ever drinking 
Nepenthe she holds to my lips — 
I with'my love in her Palace 
Drain the nepentheline chalice. 
All the night long, intertwining 
Her love with my love, and reclining 
My soul on her soul, I am lying, 
Lulled by her languorous sighing. 
Stilled by the blisses outvying 
I fancy the blisses of dying. 
O 'tis the rest of repletion ! 
The days are but days of mutations 
Of blisses as perfect as this is ; 
For here are no ordered gradations 
Of rest and no temperate blisses. 
My heart is so lulled I can scarcely 
Measure its leisure pulsations — 
Heart but now pulsing so fiercely ! 
The turbulent sun of my Steamlaud 
Drowsily over my Dreamland 
Idles the afternoon. 
The loitering love-lorn moon 
Lies in a long love-swoon. 



LAST OF THE DRYADES. 71 

^'or sphere iu the sky nor a sta-r is 

But charni'd with the idoleiice tarries 

Where rest ever stills, never wearies. 

The wrens in the bramble-thicket 

Whisper their loves, the cricket 

Under the Palace walls 

Scarce iu a whisper calls. 

Out of the pine its groan. 

Out of the wind its moan, 

Out of the leaf its tremor. 

Out of the rill its murmur. 

O ! 'tis a very Eden 

Of quiet dropped from heaven, 

And I and my love content 

Will idle forever here — 

Never the demon Steam 

Shall banish us . . . 



VIL 

Again — 
It comes — the ringing 
Turbulence here, the stinging 
Turbulence here in my brain ! — 
Clasp me, beloved Spirit 
Nearer to thee — I hear it 
Now like a tempest coming 
Swift through the lurid gloaming. 
Hark ! how it shrieks, till Terror 
Trembles aghast as nearer. 
Loud as the crash of battles 
Swiftly the monster rattles ! 
Up and away, or perish ! 



72 LAST OF THE DRYADF:;i. 

For 'tis the locomotive, 
Thing of the trader votive, 
Thing the perturbed cherish. 
Hear in the monster's hisses 
Knells of thy lavish blisses. 
Lo ! in the teeming train is 
Traffic, and wanton Pain is 
There, and the hectic Vices, 
Ay, and the wan Unrest ; 
Crime and the foul Excesses ; 
Anguish and Agony, 
Feres of the Cruelty 
Of cities — Strife is there. 
Grief and surceaseless Care, 
Gain, and the harlot bold. 
Ambition, grown o'er-old ; 
Avarice, leashed to his beagles, 
Want and the gaunt Diseases, 
(Ghoul that no gorge appeases,) 
Counting his lioarded eagles. 
Lo ! in the gilded coaches 
Too the malign Reproach is ; 
There are her sisters Toil, 
Envy and pale Turmoil. 
Murder, the grim Remorses, 
Theft, and the triple Curses, 
Self and her Greed, and Malice; 
Lust and the wanton Follies; 
Pride in her scorn, and Fashion, 
Hate, and unrighteous Passion, 
Slander, whose glance but sullies. 
Sorrow is there a guest 
Of Death, and I see a face 
Veiled, and her fettered hand 
Bearing; a shattered wand : 



LAST OF THE DRYADES. 73 

Lo ! 'tis the form of Peace. 
These are the dwellers newly 
Come to the happy valleys, 
Come to the Ultime Thule. 



VIII. 

Vanished, my castles gilded, 
Buried, the hopes I builded, 
O'er, the ecstatic instant, 
Banished, my angel min'strant ! 
Teem the enchanted valleys 
With men in the quest of Mammon, 
Children o'er-old ; and woman, 
Aged in her youth with pain. 
Toils in the mills of Gain. 
Strangers are in the Palace : 
Traders, whose ribald laughter 
Echoes from sill to rafter. 
Sit in the gilded halls 
Decking their tawdry stalls. 
Luring the passers by 
To list with the oily lie 
That.baffles truth — a stable 
'Tis for the iron horses 
Drink at its fountains' sources. 
Lo ! from the gilded babel 
View I a something pallid 
Seeming a-swoon — I near it : 
Woe! 'tis my stricken Spirit — 
Dead ! by the demon slain, 
Prone on the gleaming rails. 
Crushed by the iron heels, 



74 LAST OF THE DRYADE8. 

Fleck'd with the sable foam 
Of Steam's swift horse! 



IX. 

I come 
Now to the ways of Mammon, ► 
Back to the wiles of woman, 
Else to the toils are human, 
Out of the leafy by-ways 
Into the teeming high-ways, 
Into the hectic fever 
Here by the dual river. 
Loud is the solitude 
With strife and the din of traffic- 
Loud are the ways seraphic, 
Voiced with the loud invader, 
Vexed with the sordid trader 
Come to the land but newly — 
Come to the Ultime Thule. 
Ocean is joined to ocean, 
Gulf to the Arctic ices 
Firm with an iron fetter. 
Far to earth's utter sources 
Trade on his charger courses. 
Bearing his ill devices : 
Not in the land of Thule 
Now is a happy valley, — 
Now is a way of pity. 



ALOES. 

I have drained to its dregs the gilt chalice 
of pleasure ; 
I have quaffed to its lees the full 
flagon of life ; 
I have drank at the Fountain of Youth a 
full measure ; 
In the harvest of love I have gleaned 
a fair sheaf. 

I have tasted the temperate fruits are 
forbidden ; 
I have eaten the apple 'neath tropical 
skies ; 
I have felt the keen edge of the axe that 
lies hidden 
In the innocent mask of a pair 
of soft eyes. 

I have climbed up the steep of Parnassian 
mountains ; 
I have drank till I reeled the Cas- 
talian wine ; 



76 ALOES. 

I have loved in the crystalline Lethean 
fountains ; 
I have dreamed the sweet dream of a 

fame that was mine. 

I have had the full love of the one perfect 
woman ; 
I have felt the high thrill of a father's 
first joy : 
I have turned her full love to the hate of 
a demon ; 
I have banished the love of my 

passionate boy. 

And at thirty T stand on the edge of the 
evening, 
And peer with a shudder far into 
the night — 
In the past but a pang, nor the present 
reprieving. 
In the future no gleam of a bea- 
coning light. 

— There is hope? What is hope but a beau- 
: tiful wraith ? 

I would give all the hope man e'er 

had or may boast 
For one seon of youth — I would barter the 

faith 
Of the cycles of time for the love I 
have lost. 

Nevermore ! — I have lavished my day, and the 
gloaming, 



ALOES. 77 

As it creeps o'er the heights whispers 
low, and it saith, 
" Art thou ready ? — the Fieud of the Future is 
coming, 

The inscrutable Fiend, the white Uhlan 
of death ! " 



I am ready. — What matter if dead or if 
living? 
There is nothing in life but its 

aloes for me. 
And is death not of life but a kindly de- 
priving ? 
Then why should I fear to forget 
and be free ? 



ALONE. 

Alone! — ear hath not heard, 
Tongue hath not spoken word 
So fraught with perfect moan 
As this sad word Alone. 

Alone! — Lara alone, 
Apart from men, unknown : 
'Mid myriads of my kind 
I count no man my friend. 

Alone ! — men pass me by ; 
I ask, I question why ; 
'Twas thus from infancy. 
Thus will it ever be. 



Alone ! — I have no thought 
In league with human aught 
There is no beating heart 
Gives me some only part. 

78 



ALONE. 79 



Aloue ! — alone with life, 
Alone with mother, wife, 
With daughter and with son, 
And with myself alone. 

Alone ! — I marvel me 
If in the life To Be 
I shall be so alone 
As in this teeming zone. 

I marvel, and I dream 
Beyond the silent stream 
One waits whom God hath given 
To be my friend in heaven — 

A sad soul floating e'er 
Since time from sphere to sphere, 
Me seeking, I have sought : 
O satisfying thought ! 



BROKEN YASES. 

1. 

A friend gave me one day 
A vase of vSevres clay. 
His name vvas written on — 
His portrait graven 'pon 
The vase, and this legend : 
" A token from a friend." 

My hand in anger swept 
The vase I long had kept. 
I culled the fragments fine 
And gave them one to join — 
One skilled: he joined them well 
But left a scar to tell. 



A maid gave me one day 

Her heart to keep alway. 

My name was written on — 

My portrait graven 'pon 

The gem, and this : " ' Twixt thee 

And me a bond for aye." 

80 



BROKEN VASES. 81 

But I with ruffian stroke 
Ei'e long the jewel broke. 
I gleaued the fragments fine 
And gave them her to join : 
She joined them wondrous well, 
But left a scar to tell. 

3. 

My Marguerite, my wife, 
Gave me her whole white life. 
Her soul was stamped upon — 
Her -spirit graven on 
The gift, and this : " For me 
'Tis for eternity." 

But I with passion rife 
Dissevered her blent life. 
I culled the splinters fine 
And gave them her to join : 
She joined them well — alas 
A scar each splinter has. 



A REQUIEM. ' 

I loved, and lived a year and a day 
In my faith in my love Marie, 

And my love Marie a year and a day 
Loved, living in faith in me. 

But one wrought out of a coarser clay, 

And envying her and me 
Our faith in our living loves, one day 

Tempted my love Marie, 

Whispering, "Hollow the faith of him 
Thou deemest so true to thee ; 

Yestereve in the mists he came 
And pledged his faith to me, 

Saying, ' Thou wast ray love alway ; 

Never I loved but thee ; 
A fancy, dead in a year and day, 

My passion for my Marie.' " 



A REQUIEM. §3 

And hearing, heeding the lie of me 

She spake of the coarser clay, 
The faith died out of my love Marie 

Had lived a year and a day- 
Died in an instant . . . Well, ah me! 

How frail a thing is a faith !— 
Soul of a spirit, dream of a joy, 

Fay of a phantom wraith ! 



TO M. K. H, 



Aud thou ! — I oue day said, 

" Her friendship true will last 
A little year has past, 
And it is dead. 



How slight a thing to thee! — 
A kindly word, some store 
Of sympathy — no more ; 
'Twas much to me. 



Mine is the loss — I know 

Not why you passed me by ; 
I will not question why — 
You willed it so. 



A pang, an unwept tear, — 

I view slain Friendship lie. 
Pierced unexpectant by 
Scorn's iron spear. 



TO M. R. H. 85 



By memory cherished, rest, 

Dream of a perished year, — 
Rest iu memoriam here — 
Here in my breast. 



So one by one they pass: 
Each year a tetter less 
Binds me to life's duress — 
And yet, alas ! 

So one by one they fall, 

Cut down — I cannot say 
Wherefore, years, ye slay 
My friendships all. 



TO A LADY. 

On Her Wediliii;/ Ihui. 

One dark December day 
A maiden crossed my way. 
The lamp burned fitfully 
Within my heart, but she 
Poured oil upon the flame 
And gave it added gleam. 

A year went by, and yet 
The flame her presence lit 
Burned steadily, and I 
Dreamed 'twas not lit to die — 
It burned so loyally 
I thought 'twould burn alway. 

December rounding brought 
The maid fe'er nigh in thought) 
Again one wintry day 
Athwart my lighten'd way. 



TO A LADY. 87 

The flame leapt up anew . . . 
And died — how, none e'er knew. 



A friend told me just now 
She'd taken Hymen's vow. 
A pang— I smiled, and said 
To me, " An she has wed 
Another for this life. 
Her memory is my wife." 



TO THE SAME. 

Oil Ihi' Biilh iifher Firal licii. 

A dreary year to inauy, 
A cheery year to mau}' — 

To thee, Estelle? 

To nie — ah, well I 
Some (lays are dreary, 
Some dttys are cheery, 
And some are chill. 
And some are ill. 

As the years go by : 
A little more dreary, 
A little less cheery, 
A little more chill, 
A little more ill 

Each year, as the years flow by 

I hear from some fair other, 
Estelle, thou art a mother — 

A first-born boy, 

A wife's chief joy ! 



TO THE SAME. 89 

A thrill — I whisper, 
" The tiny lisper, 
The little life, 
My memory-wife, 

Is ours ! " And ever, 
As the days go brightly 
I say it lightly, 
And I say it soft, 
And repeat it oft, 

And over, aweary never. 

Bright beauty — will he know me? 
Slight beauty — will he know me? 

His eyes are thine ; 

His hair is mine. 
So fine and yellow ; 
His laugh as mellow 
As the bobolink's, 
Is thine, one thinks 

Who has felt its powers ; 
But mine his sadness, 
And thine his gladness ; 
His lips as wine — 
Ah, they are thine ! — 

This beautiful boy of ours. 



TO H L S . 

Why do I love thee? For thy beauty. Which 

Fair part of thee is fairest? When you laugh, 

I say, " It is her lawgh," and when you weep, 

" Nay, 'tis her tears," and when your heart is touch'd 

With pity of some sorrow, then I say, 

" It is her heart," and when you joust with man 

In tourney of the mind and vanquish him, 

" Ah, 'tis her mind ;" anon I view thee bathed 

In some pure psychic glow of lofty thought. 

And then I whisper to me, " 'Tis her soul ! " 

I know not which is fairest — can I guess 

Of twenty opals which alone is first, 

If none be second ? Thou art fair as light 

(Tho' men proclaim thee plain) in all to me — 

Within, without alway ; but if one part 

Be fairer than another, 'tis, I think, 

Thy spirit's lattice, thy divine plain face. 

The crowning thought of God was mortal woman : 

Thou art His better after-thought of her. 

90 



FOl^ WHO SHALL SAY? 



For who shall say those subtle essences 
Give man his prowess o'er the lesser beasts, 
Were not before man was? Was Dante's soul 
A thing of Dante's years? Was Byron's spirit, 
With all its stores of knowledge at an age 
When little men are infants— with its vast 
And varied intimacies with all things, 
Coeval with that part of him which died? 
Think ye the marvellous boy, whose genius 'mazed 
The savans of a nation, prison'd a soul 
Too in its teens ? Was mortal Keats, who fell 
At four and twenty, pierced with Malice's dart — ■ 
Who life achieving lived to death so young — 
The bridewell of a spirit no more old ? 
Was mighty Csesar's soul but fifty-six ? 
I think it had lived ages ere Rome was. 
I think the finished spirits of this earths- 
Rare, enviable and immortal few— 

91 



92 FOR WHO SHALL SAY. 

Were fashioned in the glow of God's full youth. 
When He intoxicate with new creation 
Wrought some essence of Himself in each : 
For they are gods of men 



AMBITION. I 



Sempoalla — nigltt. A room in the Palace of the Cacique; Hernando Curlea within. 
CORTES [solus]. 

Now doth my purpose ripen to rare fruit. 

I've played a game at hazards with the jade 

Men christen Fortune, and have paired her oft, 

Till odds are in my favor. Velasquez, 

Thou fortune-fashioned pawn, I've taken thee. 

When all hung on the hazard of a move, 

I played it cautiously, nor risked a chance ; 

But since I've centered all upon the king, 

I'll play it boldly, for a desperate game 

Will brook no caution, and whoso doth win 

Doth silence cavil at the manner of 't. 

There's virtue in success and vice in failure. 

Rebellion when achieved is revolution. 

And any patriot laurel-crown'd and loved 

Had losing been an upstart and a traitor : 

There's but a narrow chance 'twixt faith and treason. 

Gold is the key shall open wide the door 

93 



94 AMBITION. 

'Twixt me and Carlos' favor, and the Pope 
I'll win with piety and proselytes : 
With Rome to aegis me, who dare impeach, 
Tho' twenty treasons lurked in my adventure ! 



[^Rising, he paces the floor feverishly. Alva- 
rado enters to announce the arrival of 
an embassy frovi Montezuma. Alva- 
rado, naming the rich presents sent by 
the Aztec emperor to Cortes, mentions 
twenty noble virgins — one the emper- 
or's own daughter; whereupon their 
conversation takes an amorous bent, 
and they recount their amours, Alva- 
rado's passing m number and bold- 
ness those of Cortes. At last Cortes 
exclaims in extenuation and self-de- 
fense — 

Ah, well, well, 

Opportunity was something niggard with me. 



AI.VARADO. 

'Tis- opportunity doth shape all fames : 

The clown who dangled at a harrow's tail, 

And died the clod he coaxed base being from. 

Had haply been great Csesar, circumstanced 

Like Csesar, and th' imperial One a clod 

Of man-guised earth, but for supreme occasion. 

{_Exit Alvarado. 



AMBITION. 95 

CORTES [^Solusl- 

' Tis opportunity doth shape all fames' ! 

Ah, Alvarado, iu thine airy speech 

Thou utter'dst all unwitting weighty truth. 

Now is the handle of supreme occasion 

Thrust out by Fate, beseeching I shall grasp it. 

Nor sues in vain, for I'll lay hold of it 

With the firm and constant grip of stout Ambition. 

Cortes, thou dangler at the strings of Fortune, 

Thou clod hast coaxed base being from existence. 

Thou 'rt franchised by large opportunity. 

Now shalt thou climb to fame's high eminence — 

Hew'ng rundles with thy sword — and carve thy name 

Level with the immortal minority — 

Or die a surer death with headlong pitch 

Down in the abysm of the unremember'd. 

() tantalizing thought ! — to die unborne 

I' the memories of the men come after me. 

Man — what is he but a name? a sign 

Of something sensate, tangible, instinct ? 

And if he die uncrowned, and bear his name 

Down into the dank, worm-peopled, noisome grave. 

For what fit purpose hath he lived his life? 

Far better have been a patient plodding beast. 

Content with housing from the winter's blast 

And feed to appease keen hunger's gnawing. 

[J pause. 

O 

Thou patient little soul, live out thy space, 

And dying mingle thy juices with the earth's, 

And men shall turn the whites o' their eyes to heaven, 

And sigh. Ah me! and whisper. He did his duty : 



96 AMBITION. " 

Another 'II glide into thy place and fill it 
As thou hadst never been, O mighty mote! 
Living, you fatted 'pen the rankness of the soil ; 
Dead, you shall nourish fodder for men else, 
And fat a cabbage with your festering carcass. 
Bah ! what an end of all man's aspirations ! 
What price too dear for full absolvement from it? 
I'd barter hope, and peace, and conjugal love, 
And all the lesser deities men worship. 
To compass it — Ay, I would pledge my soul. 
My absolving faith from sin, and all save honor, 
And leap down in the abyss o' the dread hereafter, 
Godless, Christless, to win a deathless name. 
Having it, what need I of a god ? I'd be 
A god myself, apotheosized of men. — 
But peace ! possess thyself, O mine ambition, 
Against th' achievement of thy victory. 

\_ExiL 



ADIOS 



Once I thought 'twould me dissever 

From myself to sever us. 
Once I deemed your life could never 

Bear dissev'rance, dare my loss. 
By how frail a thread is friendship 

Joined to beating human hearts! 
Touched, it snaps, and dead is friendship. 

Broken in many-anguished parts. 
Thou and I were friends, and boasted 

We should be so evermore : 
Lo ! a touch I thought had tested 

But not taxed our friendship o'er — 
Thou, whose heart here on mine rested. 

Shall rest hereon nevermore — 
Thou didst view the hand uplifted. 

Thou didst view it swift descend, 
Nor thine own free hand uplifted 

To withhold it, or forefend. 



98 ADIOS. 

II. 

Well, 'tis ended : we unblended 

Who so solely deemed us blent, 
Hence are strangers, I unfriended, 

Thou to other friendships lent — 
For thou canst not give thee to them, 

But, possessing, must renew them. 
Adios. — I love thee, view thee 

As a dead far more than wife, 
And thy memory mingles newly 

With my new unfriended life. 
Groping down the years, I builded 

Phantom-friendships by the way: 
Night o'er-palled them — morning gilded 

Splendid wrecks of yesterday. 
Deep then in the vale of manhood — 

All my youth's fair friendships dead- 
Thiue I built, where never man should 

Enter, or despoil, I said. 
Lo ! the sun went down — I slumbered 

In this frendship aye of mine: 
Lo ! the sun came up — it numbered 

With the slain thine, even thine. 

III. 

Lo! the reed growing by the river 

Plucked out ieaveth scarce a trace ; 
But the oak uprooted, never 

Time the void can quite efface. 
Youth may love to-day, to-morrow 

View its frail love borne afar. 
Leaving a little hour's sorrow, 

Leaving ne'er a sign or scar. 
Man may love — his love is ever, 

Rooting deep down round his soul ; 



ADIOS. 99 



Stricken, it leaves a chasm never 

Surgery of the years can heal. 
Adios. — I kiss thy memory 

Now at eventide and morn, 
As of yore I kissed the, Marie, 

Ere from mine thy life was torn. 
Adios. — The hurt abides on 

In the silence of my heart 
Better and less grievous is than 

Never to have known thou wert. 



KRRATA. 

On page 24. In line 10, omit comma after " to." 

On page 89. In line 15, for " James," read Janus. 

On page 40. In line 5, for " imquiet," read unquiet. 

On page 61. In line 11, for '• Cardicide," read Cordi- 

cide. 

On page QQ. In line 5, for •' .seems," read sums. 

On page 68. In line 12, for "gone," read zone. 

On page 71. In line 2, for •' idolenee," read indolence. 

On page 76. In line 1, for " loved," read laved. 

On page 99. In line 5, for " the," read thee. 




■^I^^^^y 



